Siege of Rome (1492)

The Siege of Rome (August 1492) occurred when the army of King Ferrante I of Naples occupied the city of Rome in an attempt to sway the tide of the Papal conclave in favor of the Neapolitan cardinal Oliviero Carafa. The invaders were overwhelmed by the people of the city, who rose up against them and drove them out of Rome.

History
In August 1492, a Papal conclave was held in Rome to determine the successor of the late Pope Innocent VIII. The election was a heated contest, and it dragged on for days, leading to the people of the city becoming restless. The rioting was quelled early into the conclave, but the people began to offer less food to the College of Cardinals, pressuring them to hasten their vote. Concerned about the lack of support for his candidacy, Cardinal Oliviero Carafa communicated with a Neapolitan agent through a drain and asked for King Ferrante I of Naples to bring his army to Rome from Naples and to "clear the air of indecision which (affected the) capital." The Neapolitan army entered the city, causing panic among the populace. Neapolitan arquebusiers fired on crowds of armed mobs, but Neapolitan troops in alleyways found themselves pelted with vegetables and rocks, before men and women with weapons assaulted them and savagely killed them. The popular revolt against the Neapolitans drove them from the city, and Cardinal Carafa, feeling that his lord's actions had been made in error, asked for the four cardinals who voted for him to instead vote for his former rival, Cardinal Ascanio Sforza (he would rather see an Italian sit on the throne of Saint Peter's, rather than Rodrigo Borgia, a Spanish cardinal accused of being a Jew). At the end of the conclave, it would be Borgia who was elected Pope.